It’s the most secure place on earth, the place were fortune 500 companies and the world’s
wealthiest individuals keep their most precious treasures.
With vaults reaching deep under the earth, only one place can keep the most important
items in the world safe from nuclear holocaust.
The name is Iron Mountain, and it’s on the lips of every person who has ever needed to
hide a priceless treasure far away from thieves.
In business since 1951, it specializes in records management, data backup and recovery,
and occasionally destruction of sensitive material.
Not only is this company popular enough to be a member of the S&P 500 stock index, but
virtually every powerful company in the world uses their service.
As of 2020, a full 95% of Fortune 1000 companies employ Iron Mountain for storage and management
of their most secure information.
But its beginnings were almost shockingly humble.
Herman Knaust was exploring Livingston, New York for the perfect place for his enterprise
- the biggest Mushroom farm in the area.
An abandoned iron ore mine gave him the land he needed to expand, and Iron Mountain was
born for only $9000.
But not long after his purchase, the mushroom market changed, and Knaust would have to shift
quickly if he didn’t want to take a bath on his investment.
The good news was, his new purchase gave him a lot of land to explore - not just above
ground, but under it.
Times were tense, and security was money.
It was the height of the Cold War, and everyone was looking to the sky with fear of nuclear
war.
Businesses were looking to store their key documents underground.
Knaust created a network of underground vaults to store the most secret and valuable items
for businesses, starting with microfilm copies of deposit records for banks.
While Knaust went bankrupt in the 1970s and his company was acquired, new owner Vincent
J. Ryan had big plans for Iron Mountain.
They expanded outside of New York, acquired one data and security company after another,
and now operate around the world in sites that used to be everything from strip malls
to missile storage batteries.
But Iron Mountain is known most for one thing.
Welcome to the most secure place in the world.
When you talk about security, most people think about Fort Knox - where the government
stores over half the country’s gold reserves.
And then there’s Area 51, the highly classified government facility that may contain...well,
they’re not telling, no matter how many people plan to storm the gates.
But those are only protected by the government.
Iron Mountain’s facility in Boyers, Pennsylvania has a different clientele - just about every
rich person in the country who needs their most valuable possessions kept safe.
So what makes this powerhouse site so secure?
You can start with the location.
A former limestone mine, it’s spread out over 1,000 acres and was initially used as
a storage facility by US Steel to keep its records safe in the event of a nuclear strike.
It operated as the National Storage Company until it was bought by Iron Mountain in 1998
- and its transformation began into a one-of-a-kind site.
While many storage facilities are little more than tightly guarded sheds or nuclear bunkers,
Iron Mountain leaves nothing to chance - starting with the fact that some of its treasures are
kept as much as twenty-two stories into the Earth.
Good luck getting down there without the right clearance.
But that’s only the start of getting into this site.
The security starts long before you get into the compound.
As you enter the company’s property, only accessible by car, you’ll be herded into
gate-lined lanes and thoroughly searched.
You’ve probably only encountered security like this in your car if you’ve crossed
over a national border.
But things are about to get weirder.
You drive forward - and the road abruptly ends, leading you right into a rock wall at
the bottom of a steep cliff.
The cliff face has a massive tunnel, with the entrance sealed off by a huge sliding
gate guarded by armed security.
It almost looks like the entrance to a supervillain lair or sci-fi fortress.
But if you have the clearance to get in, the secrets within are worth the security.
Iron Mountain isn’t one storage facility - it’s countless storage facilities in the
largest private storage center in the world.
Each one guarded by red steel doors, the massive climate-controlled facility contains some
of the biggest secrets in the business world.
Celebrities both living and dead, and some of the most powerful tech companies in the
world, all use Iron Mountain’s Pennsylvania facility to keep their secrets - and we only
know a small percentage of the secrets within.
After all, that’s kind of the point of storing something in the most secure place in the
world.
But hey, they let us in, so let’s take a little tour.
Are you a film buff?
Then you should rest easy that Iron Mountain had some of the biggest treasures in film
history under lock and key.
They stored over 1800 cans of nitrate film before they were collected by the Academy
Film Archive, where they’re now stored in the world’s largest collection.
These films were likely preserved from the early days of film, and while many classic
films have been lost forever due to damage or other hazards, these are sealed away as
a testament to the earliest days of the art form.
But that’s not the only art form Iron Mountain is keeping safe.
Master recordings are the ultimate treasure in music, and the three biggest music studios
around all chose the same place to store them.
Universal, Sony, and Warner keep their masters under lock and key, with Universal choosing
the Butler facility.
They also have the original recordings of Frank Sinatra, proving Ol’ Blue Eyes’
heirs know the value of his music.
But every time one of these recordings is checked out, there’s a risk it could be
lost - which is why Iron Mountain has professional recording studios in its facilities, meaning
the companies can work with them without ever taking them out of their secure base.
But some celebrities have found other uses for Iron Mountain.
What do Princess Diana, Charles Dickens, and Charles Darwin all have in common?
The wills of these three late legends are all stored in Iron Mountain facilities.
Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, owns a massive photographic collection
through his Corbis corporation that specializes in licensing and digitizing artwork.
The company purchased the Bettmann Archive, which contains over sixteen million images
- the original copies of which are stored in the Pennsylvania facility in a refrigerated
cave.
But it’s not the only use Bill Gates and other billionaires have for Iron Mountain.
One of the most important rooms in Iron Mountain’s Boyers facility is twenty-two stories down,
with the unassuming name Room 48.
One of the facility’s newer additions, it specializes in creating a more climate-friendly
environment for data centers.
Many major corporations have committed to tackling climate change, and computers eat
a lot of energy.
Room 48’s geothermal energy systems use the surrounding environment to create a closed-loop
piping system that naturally cools the room, and they’re researching ways to use the
mine’s water directly to provide energy for the data center.
And that’s good, because Iron Mountain processes a LOT of data.
Not only do top corporations use Iron Mountain’s Boyers facility to store copies of their data
- likely including records of customer data that they’ve promised to safeguard - but
the US government has even gotten in on the game.
While many government documents are kept under lock and key in federal facilities like Fort
Knox, the government has outsourced the papers on government employee retirement accounts
to Iron Mountain, where the US Office of Personnel Management leases a cavern.
And that’s likely just scratching the surface.
Hm, maybe you’ll find the secrets to the Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices down there.
So how does Iron Mountain keep all these secrets safe?
There are more levels of security than you can shake a stick at.
In fact, if you did shake a stick at them, you’d probably be tackled by the armed guards
who patrol the facility around the clock.
Companies can choose shared vaults, or register a private vault where no one gets in or out
without their approval.
Many of the items in Iron Mountain are fragile and one wrong move could make them crumble
into dust, so every vault in the facility has its temperature and humidity levels carefully
controlled - both for temporary and long-term storage.
While it’s not easy to get in, the company is in regular contact with the property owners,
and all files can be shipped quickly on request or converted to digital formats for use while
the originals stay safe.
And that’s not mentioning Iron Mountain’s top security feature - its geography.
Built into the side of a cliff and heading straight down into the earth, Iron Mountain
is protected from most natural disasters ranging from floods to hurricanes and even earthquakes.
Once the gate is sealed, it’s highly unlikely anyone would be able to break in, and even
if they did manage to enter the facility, every vault presents its own challenging security
measures and is equipped with alarms that alert the on-site security and record the
intruders.
And that’s assuming they even get past the security fencing and crash barriers surrounding
the cliff.
It’s no surprise that the facility gets the Department of Justice’s highest security
rating.
So is Iron Mountain the foolproof answer to your security needs?
Well...not quite.
While the security on the hard copies stored inside the Butler facility is essentially
foolproof, the company’s data storage history has a slightly spottier record.
The company has a history of losing or misplacing files, both in fires at facilities and in
transit.
Most famously, Time Warner loaded unencrypted data on 600,000 employees into an Iron Mountain
van, and somewhere along the way, the files just disappeared.
That led the company to start encrypting its tapes.
Other incidents involved fires in London and Buenos Aires, some set intentionally.
While the top security at the vaults is all it’s hyped up to be, if you need your files
transported between sites, you may be taking a risk.
So how do you get into an Iron Mountain facility anyway?
Well, it’s not exactly open for tourism.
A camera crew was allowed in briefly in 2015 and got a look at some exclusive photos, including
rarely-seen images of Albert Einstein and Rosa Parks, but the storage facility has fifteen
vaults - each the size of a big-box store - and is still expanding, so they barely got
to scratch the surface of the massive facility.
And even if you’re storing something in there, the odds are you’ll only get access
to your vault - not the rest of them.
The people who get to see the most of the Bowers facility are its tirelessly working
technicians and security who keep the place operating.
So there is an opening - but expect to go through a security vetting process that rivals
the ones you experience when applying to the FBI, followed by a long time working your
way up in the ranks of Iron Mountain before you’re trusted with access to their top
facility.
But what does it take to get your family treasure inside that Bowers facility?
That depends on what you’re looking to store.
Data storage at Iron Mountain can be very reasonable, starting with only $12 a year
for a single LTO-8 tape of 12 terabytes of compressed data.
But if you’re looking for hard storage, the price is going to be a lot higher.
You’ll be charged by cubic foot, with additional fees for every feature you need - starting
with transfer, climate control, and any labor involved.
Multiply that by the length of the stay, and while the initial numbers may look small,
it’ll add up quickly.
For shared vaults and items that only need a small space, this can be affordable, but
if you want a private vault - well, there’s a reason why the Fortune 500 likes this company
so much - they can afford it.
And so far, it’s proven to be worth the investment.
For more on one of the most closely guarded places in the world, check out “Why No One
Can Break Into the Most Secure Place in the World (Fort Knox)”, or watch this video
instead.